Boggart
| Grouping | Folklore creature |
|---|---|
| Sub grouping | Household fairy, or 'ogre' attached to a particular location |
| Similar creatures | See here |
| Mythology | English folklore |
| Other name(s) | Bogle Boggle |
| Country | England |
| Region | Nationwide |
| Habitat | Within the home - or usually outside it in North-West England and some other regions. |
Boggart is one of numerous related terms used in English folklore for either a household spirit or a malevolent genius loci inhabiting fields, marshes or other topographical features. Other names of this group include bug, bugbear, bogey, bogeyman, bogle, etc., presumably all derived from (or related to) Old English pūcel, Irish púca and Welsh bwg with the same meaning (itself a probable loan from the English bug).
The household form causes mischief and things to disappear, milk to sour, and dogs to go lame. The boggarts inhabiting marshes or holes in the ground are often attributed more serious evil doing, such as the abduction of children.
Always malevolent, the household boggart will follow its family wherever they flee. It is said that the boggart crawls into people's beds at night and puts a clammy hand on their faces. Sometimes he strips the bedsheets off them. Sometimes a boggart will also pull on a person's ears. Hanging a horseshoe on the door of a house and leaving a pile of salt outside your bedroom are said to keep a boggart away.
In some areas, Northumberland for example, it was believed that helpful household sprites, "silkies" or "brownies", could turn into malevolent boggarts if offended or ill-treated.
In Northern England, at least, there was the belief that the boggart should never be named, for when the boggart was given a name, it would not be reasoned with nor persuaded, but would become uncontrollable and destructive. Within the folklore of North-West England, boggarts can cause mischief in homes but tend to live outdoors, in marshland, holes in the ground, under bridges and on dangerous sharp bends on roads. The book Lancashire Folklore of 1867, makes a distinction between "House boggarts" and other types. In Lancashire a skittish or runaway horse was said to have "took boggarts" - that is, been frightened by a, usually invisible, boggart. When a person got lost in a marsh and was never seen again, the people were sure that a boggart had caught the poor unfortunate and devoured him. The name of at least one Lancashire boggart was recorded, "Nut-Nan", who flitted with a shrill scream among hazel bushes in Moston near Manchester. In Yorkshire boggarts also inhabit outdoor locations, one is said to haunt Cave Ha, a limestone cavern at Giggleswick near Settle.
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